Both In Mourning
by emryslovely
Summary: Xander and Buffy share a night together, and both feel as if they've ruined their friendship. B/X, with hints at X/A and B/S. Post-Chosen, but doesn't follow the comics, so don't worry if you haven't read them.


**Title: Both In Mourning**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, places, names, or terms in this piece or in the Buffy universe. They all belong to Joss. I wish I owned Xander, though. **

**Couples: B/X, with hints of X/A and B/S.**

Xander woke up feeling confused, bewildered, and somewhat odd.

What had happened? Had it been a dream?

Could his subconscious really make up something like that? Something that vivid and extraordinary?

No, he thought. It couldn't have. Could it?

He looked over to his left and saw a wrapper on the bedside table. A square-shaped wrapper ripped through the center.

Well, at least they had been safe. And he knew what had happened. He knew that no level of his subconscious could have created the illusion of that feeling of skin touching skin.

What had he done? Why had he done it? Why had she done it?

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Xander?" The unmistakeable voice of Willow came through the wood. "Buffy's gone. She left a note for us. Apparently she's gone out to fight a demon she saw."

Still feeling disoriented, Xander got up from his bed, put on his pants, and replied, "OK, Will. Wanna have breakfast?"

"Sure. Meet Kennedy and me downstairs in about ten minutes."

"OK."

As he heard the soft footsteps fade away, Xander sat back down on the bed, his mind reeling. Buffy was gone?

After the destruction of Sunnydale, the Scoobies and the new slayers had moved to L.A., at least until everyone could get settled. Willow and Kennedy had setttled in a small apartment complex, and Buffy had followed. Not wanting to room with Giles, not trusting Andrew enough to sleep near him, and Buffy's need of a roommate had been the deciding factor in where Xander would be. Dawn had a room with the new slayers. Buffy didn't think she could deal with them day and night. Faith had gone off to help in Cleveland.

It's not like she and Xander had been dating. At all. They were renting a two-bedroom apartment, so they weren't even sleeping in the same area. Yet it had happened.

Xander shoved memories down. He put a shirt on and headed downstairs.

When he got to the lobby, Kennedy and Willow were sitting on a couch, holding hands and smiling.

"Hey, Xander," Kennedy said. Xander gave her a half smile that was probably more of a smirk. He had never been too fond of Kennedy's presence, but never said anything. He valued his friendship with Willow far too much.

"So, where are we going to go today? Denny's? IHOP?" Willow gave him that adorable smile that he had loved since he was five.

"Um, I was thinking, uh, yeah. IHOP, I guess."

"Sure. I could go for some waffles."

So they went off to eat a delicious and not-so-nutritious breakfast.

Xander couldn't enjoy it, however. As much as he wanted to smile and laugh at Willow's chatter, pretend to be interested in what Kennedy said, or fill his stomach with empty calories that would surely make his scale angry, he couldn't. He just couldn't get Buffy out of his head. What they had done, and that she was gone already. He didn't know what to feel.

"Xander? Xander? Are you in there? You didn't die, did you? Wait, did you die?" Willow's voice vaguely came through his mind.

"Yeah," he replied, not really paying attention. Willow stifled a small giggle. Xander perked his head up to see her smiling while Kennedy was raising an eyebrow.

"You seem out of it today," said Kennedy with a worried look on her face. Xander shook his head slowly.

"I'm just a bit tired. I have a lot on my mind right now." He hoped that would throw off their inquiries for a bit. Willow simply put on a familiar little pout, nodded, and looked back to Kennedy, who turned back without a second glance at Xander.

"I'm sorry," he said, getting up from his seat and pulling out a few bills. "Here, it's on me."

And he got up and walked out.

As he walked the streets of Los Angeles, he let the memories he had been keeping down flood over him. He and Buffy. He and Buffy. That was what had happened. It had been very late at night, however, and most of it was a blur. An extremely vivid blur.

There must be some explanation, he thought to himself. Why would they have done something like that? They hadn't even been considering a relationship past friendship. So what had happened?

She must have been under a love spell. That was the only logical thing he could think of. But if she was under a love spell, he would be fighting to get her off his shoulder and trying to keep her hands from reaching the buttons of his shirt right now.

He hadn't fought that night.

Soon he reached his apartment building, and was about to head to his room, when a voice called his name. Xander turned to see Giles walking to him with a worried expression on his face.

"Have you seen Buffy?" he asked.

Xander's heart seemed to skip a beat.

"Um, no," he answered softly. "She left a note for Willow that said she was going out to fight a demon she saw. I don't know when she'll be back."

"Do tell her that I want to see her, will you?"

"Of course..." Xander began but stopped.

The blonde ponytail was the first thing he noticed, and it was unmistakeable.

She came toward them slowly, clearly having been out all night and without much rest. Giles went up to her.

"Buffy, are you all right?" he asked. "Where did you go? What demon did you fight?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. Demon. Big and scary, green skin, usual stuff. Was terrorizing some people, but I took care of him. Or her. I'm not too clear on the gender."

She was clearly avoiding looking at Xander.

"Buffy," he approached cautiously. "You worried me. Leave a note for me and not just Willow next time."

Buffy was forced to look him in the eye. "Sorry, I was in a rush," she muttered before dropping her gaze to her feet.

"Do you need time to rest?" Giles asked. "Because I had hoped that you could help me. Apparently some form of mystical energy was released during Sunnydale's demise, and, while the hellmouth is closed for business for good, it doesn't mean that the energy can't be harmful."

"Oh, yeah, that's cool. I mean, not 'cool' in the sense of 'That's awesome, I wish mystical balls of energy were released more often,' but 'cool' as in 'Of course I'll help you.'"

"Good, but right now you need to rest."

"Actually, I feel a little energized. I think I'm going to walk around for a bit, you know. Just enjoy the day." Buffy gave Giles a look that was almost a plea. Giles gave her a wary expression before giving in.

"All right," he said, nodding his head reluctantly. "I guess you deserve a break. Besides, what harm could a big, mystical ball of energy do?"

Buffy smiled without parting her lips, turned around, and walked back the way she came.

"Giles," said Xander after she had turned the corner, "you should know not to say things like that."

"What's the matter? You've been down all day!"

With the movie going on in the background, Xander and Willow were sitting on the couch in his apartment. Neither of them were really watching the movie, which was just a cable drama with terrible acting involved. Willow had a large book of spells in her lap, and was studying the ones that involved healing.

Willow refused to give up on her goal of healing Xander's eye. Despite Giles's insistence that it was too dangerous to meddle with a human's body with magic, she was convinced that she could find a safe way.

He looked up with his one eye and said, "Nothing's wrong, I'm fine." He gestured to the heavy spell book. "You don't need to keep looking. I'm beginning to accept the whole 'my vision is screwed' kinda thing."

Willow looked at him sheepishly. "Sorry," she said, flipping the cover to a closed position. "I just want to help."

"I appreciate it, Will, really. And I totally understand why you want to. And if you do find a way to heal me, well, that'd be great, but don't stress over it, OK?"

She gave him a sly smile. "Oh, if I wanted to, I could heal you right now. But I'm being careful. I don't want to go through something that'll end up with you being able to see all realities at once or your eye being able to hear and taste or us waking up on the floor together with you thinking I'm your girlfriend."

Xander returned the smile. "Don't fret." He took the book from her lap and placed it on the floor before giving her a one-armed hug. She snuggled in closer, resting her head on his shoulder.

"So, are you sure there's nothing wrong?" she asked again, peeking up at him.

He sighed, wanting to spill a bit of information. He decided to try and explain a bit to her without giving her all the details.

"Buffy," he breathed. Crap. He had intended to give a more detailed and yet more abstract response such as "Well, one of my friends and I are having... issues..."

"What about her?"

He decided to roll with it.

"I'm just worried about her. And me."

Willow sat up. "Worried? Why? Because she went out? Don't worry, Buffy can take care of herself. She's helped stop about seven apocalypses."

"Yeah, and died twice. I'm not sure if she can be brought back a third time." He hadn't meant to say that.

Suddenly, Willow was on alert.

"Don't say stuff like that, Xander. It worries me. Is that why you're so depressed?"

He gave his biggest and longest sigh yet. "No."

"Then, what's the matter? You can tell me anything, you know that. Well, unless it involves one of those 'Keep a secret' spells that I've read up on. I'll spare you the details on what happens to some people who decide to spill."

"Thanks, Will, you've totally helped my small case of paranoia."

"Tell me. Please?"

Her gaze and pouty lip softened him. He wished he hadn't said anything in the first place.

"Buffy and I, well, she, well, we..." Xander trailed off.

It took a second for Willow to understand.

"Oh."

There was an extremely awkward silence. Both of them could feel the tension, or maybe that was just something that Giles's big ball of energy was causing.

"I didn't know you guys were going out."

"We weren't."

"Then what happened?" Willow corrected herself. "No, wait, I mean, not in the literal sense of the question, please."

"I don't know!" Xander gave a gesticulative shrug. "It just happened. I didn't plan any of it."

"Well, have you and Buffy talked about it?" Willow's sympathetic look was little comfort.

"I think she's avoiding me. Which I can hardly blame her for. I've ruined our friendship. How will she look at me the same way again?" He put his face into his hands and shook his head.

"Xander," Willow said, pulling her legs up and crossing them. "Don't be so down on yourself. I mean, it wasn't just you. It's not like you... forced her to..." She hadn't said the "r" word, but Xander knew it. He knew it very well. More memories came flooding in. Buffy sitting on the bathroom floor, tears dripping off her chin, bruises on her legs.

Willow gave him a pat on his shoulder. "I don't want to make any judgements or anything like that," she began, "but maybe you both did this because you both were mourning. You lost someone you loved, and she lost someone close."

"Do you think she loved him?" Xander's expression was unreadable.

"Well, I don't know. I'm not a professional. The most I have on my record is a psychology course that was taught by a professor who turned out to be a crazy government scientist working to build a human-slash-demon-slash-computeroid. My people skills aren't exactly the best, but Buffy may have loved him. I can't judge."

"None of this helps, though. I just want to talk to Buffy and work things out, but no, I can't, because I've screwed up. I always thought of Buffy as a sister, but now—"

He cut off, a look of realization on his face.

"The energy."

"What?"

"The energy. Giles's energy."

"What about 'Giles's energy'?"

"Giles said that there was an energy release when Sunnydale collapsed. He said he didn't know what the effects would be. Maybe it acts like some kind of drug, or love spell, or makes a person lack impulse control. Something like that."

"Did you feel strange, like maybe you were possessed or not in control or something?"

"I don't remember, I was really sleepy. It's a blur, mostly."

"Then maybe that's it. Maybe the energy affected your reasoning and memory."

"I have to talk to Giles. But I certainly do not want to tell him the whole story."

"So what are you going to say?"

"Um, maybe nothing. Maybe I'll just ask him how the energy research is going."

"I wonder why he didn't ask me. I'm the very powerful witch who managed to activate every single potential slayer in the world! I could handle a big ball of energy with no problem." Willow gave another one of her adorable pouts.

Xander smiled and took Willow into another one-armed hug. "Always enjoy bragging about that, don't you?"

"Don't you ever forget what I did. When I visit you on your death bed, and you're so old you can't remember your own name, I want your last thought to be, 'Hey, it's Willow, my best friend and the extremely powerful witch who activated every slayer in the world. What's a slayer?' I'd rather them be your last words, but maybe you won't be able to talk, so I won't ask too much of you."

"Gee, thanks Will. Love you too."

She continued to pout. "Don't worry about anything, Xander. You and Buffy will be fine."

"I don't know about that, but thanks."

Xander knocked on the door precisely three times, each with less energy put in than the last.

"Who is it?" Giles's voice came through the door.

"It's Xander."

"Come in."

Xander opened the door to the sight of Giles sitting on the floor peering over a pile of open books, glasses perched on the end of his nose. It was such a reminder to Xander of the good old days when Giles would spend hours in the high school library reading up on demon rituals and ancient vampires.

"So what's up with this big ball of energy? We don't have another key on our hands, do we?" Xander raised an eyebrow.

"No, no key." Giles's didn't even look up.

"So what can this thing do?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Xander stared for a few moments. "It's a big ball of energy that has been released from a giant hellmouth. What could it not do?"

"I've been reading up on hellmouths, and apparently this energy is pretty weak."

"Why would it be?"

"Because it's source doesn't exist anymore. At the most, this energy could erase or change a bit of a person's memory."

"How much?"

"About two seconds. At the most."

Xander quickly left without a word.

"Xander?"

It was nighttime, and she still hadn't come back yet.

"You want me to stay more?" Willow asked him, rubbing his shoulder.

"No thanks, but I need to ask you something. Can I have the car keys?"

While living in L.A., the Scoobies had rented a car to use. It was pretty much a rust on wheels, but it still worked, somewhat.

"Sure. You gonna look for her?"

"Yeah, I think so. She might be in trouble."

Willow pulled a jingly set of keys from her pocket and placed them in his hand. "Good luck," she said before getting up and leaving him sitting on the couch, kept company only by the many butterflies flying in his stomach.

Stupid rust bucket car, Xander thought to himself as the car guzzled gas while slowly rolling along the streets of Los Angeles. It seemed to be on its last leg, err, tire.

"Oh, no. No. Please, no." Xander cursed the car as it slowed. Xander just managed to pull it over next to a park before it came to a complete stop. Xander cursed it some more and got out of the driver's seat. He kicked the tire and hit the car with his hand. How was he going to find Buffy now?

One of the gods that had power over this universe must have pulled out Xander's name from a "who to give random luck to today" hat, because his prayers were answered.

There she was, seated about fifty feet from him, sitting cross-legged on a large blanket, wringing her hands a bit while staring at the ground.

Should he approach her? An internal battle began, with the side of "Go and talk to her now" at an unfair disadvantage on the uneven hill they were fighting on against the "Give her some space" side, but eventually the underdog won, and he began to walk to her, taking each step with great caution.

As she noticed him approaching, her back straightened, and her eyes widened. Xander could tell by the way the moonlight glistened off of them.

As he sat down silently on the blanket, she shifted slightly.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"Since after you last saw me." Her voice was small and meek. He couldn't remember a time when she ever sounded like that.

Silence.

"I'm sorry."

He didn't even need to ask for what she was sorry.

"Me too."

She shifted closer to him, nearly leaning against him. He could feel her warmth in the chilly night. It ran up his arm and made him shiver.

"I have more to be sorry for," she whispered in reply. The tears in her voice gave him goosebumps.

"Where'd you get the blanket?" he asked, trying to calm her obvious nerves by making conversation.

"A couple left it here."

He laughed a little. "And you didn't think they might come back here for it?"

Buffy laughed. "Oh, please. I spent about two hours just staring at it wondering if they would come and get it. If they do come back, I'll tell them I was making sure no one stole it."

Xander smiled at her, glad she was laughing. He took his thumb and wiped the tear off her cheek. She didn't flinch from his touch.

"I feel like Parker."

Not the response he thought he was going to get.

"Huh?"

"Parker, that guy I slept with who turned out to just want to use me for sex."

"Yeah, I remember. The guy that made you drown your sorrows in that caveman beer. How do you feel like him?"

She rubbed her face with her hands.

"I feel like I used you. I know I used you. Just like I used Spike." Buffy bit her lip in what looked like fear. "I shouldn't have treated Spike like that. I hit him, I abused him. I treated him like he was dirt, yet I wanted him. And I knew he'd be there when I needed him. And he really did love me. He loved me, and I used him. I didn't get a chance to tell him that I loved him back until he was almost dead, and by then, he didn't believe me. And now I've used you." Buffy tried to stifle her sobs, but Xander could tell by how much strain was in her voice. He put his arm around her and held her close to him, trying to process the idea of Buffy loving Spike.

"Buffy, I don't think it's all your fault. It's not like you forced me to." Images of Faith began running through his head.

She shook her head. "I didn't force Spike to do anything with me, but that doesn't mean that what I did was right."

"Listen, Buff," he comforted, stroking her arm affectionately. "I don't think one of us is more to blame. I lost Anya at the same time you lost Spike, and maybe that was it. We turned to one another for comfort and—"

"There's something that worries me more."

He gave her wary look. "What?"

"After last night, I realized something."

"What's that?"

She looked up at him, her eyelashes shining. Her tearful stare nearly made him break down.

"I love you."

The words hit like a ton of bricks and caused the last leg of his mental capacity to break. As he stared wide-eyed at his friend, he had a rush of thoughts that he could barely process.

Here he was in the park, sitting on a blanket, his arms around his best friend. The friend he had fallen in love with during high school. The friend who had saved his life more times than he could count. The friend that dealt with his ego and his judgmental attitude when they often came out.

And she was looking into his eyes, her stomach fluttering, her heart pounding. She was looking up at the one person who had never left her. Both Angel and Riley had come and gone. Spike was dead.

Xander had been there for her no matter what. When she had to fight the Master, when Angelus terrorized her, when Faith turned against her, when Glory was too strong for her, and sure, he had been judgmental, but he still was with her throughout her violent relationship with Spike.

And this past year. It had been a terrible, tumultuous nightmare of events that came directly after another. She ignored the memory of him supporting the notion of kicking her out of her house; she had forgiven him for that long ago.

"I love you, too."

He made the first move. Approaching her face with his, he carefully put his lips to hers, cautiously to avoid hurting or scaring her.

She kissed him back.

It continued on for a while. It could have been a second, it could have been a minute, or maybe an hour. They didn't know or care.

When they finally broke apart, Buffy got up from her place and gently tugged at Xander's arm.

"Maybe we should go back," she whispered while he stood up to face her.

"Buffy." His sharp voice made her turn back. "I want to know something."

"What is it?" she continued in her soft tone.

His eyes closed, preparing him for what he wished to say.

"What does this mean for us?"

She gazed up at him.

"I think it means that we have to see where the future takes us."

He was satisfied with that answer. Xander put his arm over her shoulders and she placed hers around his waist.

"You know, there was no demon. I just didn't want to face you."

Xander's heart melted. "It's OK. Willow saved some pancakes for you. You up to them?"

"Sure."

So they walked together out of the park and back to their apartment, leaving the broken-down car to itself.


End file.
